Pop Culture: Day of labor, shirts and books, or sausage links

Saturday

I spent almost a whole day this week trying to find a Labor Day tree that would fit in the living room. Every place I checked, they were fresh out.

I spent almost a whole day this week trying to find a Labor Day tree that would fit in the living room.

Every place I checked, they were fresh out.

I finally gave up and decided to stop and get something to eat. I chose a place that serves all-day breakfast.

I was pretty hungry, so I wanted something filling. I opened the menu and started my meal research.

I found one with potential, but upon further inspection, I got lost.

“Two eggs cooked as you like, two bacon strips and two sausage patties or sausage links, two buttermilk pancakes, hash browns or American fries and toast or a bagel.”

I motioned to the waitress.

“Are you ready to order?”?she asked.

“Well, just about,”?I said, pointing to the menu. “I’d kind of like to order the Conjunction Plate here, but I’m not sure what’s included and what isn’t,”?I said.

“Oh, that one,”?she said. “It comes with two eggs, and you can get sausage and bacon, pancakes, potatoes and either toast or a bagel.”

I didn’t know where to start.

“So, I can have both pancakes and toast?” I said.

“Yes, you can have both pancakes,” she said. “Or, if you can’t eat both of them, I could get you a take-out box and you can take the other one home with you or to work or wherever it was you just were.”

I?sat silently for a second.

“You wrote this menu, didn’t you?”

After several more hours of contemplation, I?finally figured out how to order an omelet. I washed it down with a side of rye syrup and some buttermilk orange juice (over-easy), and went back to my shopping.

Having abandoned the tree-search, I decided to do some clothes shopping. Something made me inadvertently walk into a CD store. I must have looked confused.

“Can I help you find anything?” a clerk asked.

“Yeah, I’m looking for the dress shirts,”?I said.

“The Dress Shirts??Um, I don’t think we have anything by them,”?she said. “Is that classic rock?” She hollered back at a disinterested co-worker who had hair but no face.

“Gizmo, do we have anything by The Dress Shirts?” she asked him.

I played along, just to save myself the embarrassment of entering the wrong store. So I pretended to shop. I glanced at the New Releases rack. There was nothing I didn’t expect. “Kid Rock Sings Warren Zevon Standards.” “Lynyrd Skynyrd Sings Kid Rock Classics.” The new Katy Perry CD?single, “I Kissed Kid Rock.”

I left the store when nobody was looking. I eventually wound up at a bookstore. All good shopping trips conclude at a bookstore.

I?hauled away a few good titles: “Green Eggs and Ham And/Or Sausage Links”; “How to Write Knock-em-Dead Restaurant Menus”; and, from the gardening section, “Grow Your Own Labor Day Tree.”

I figure that will come in handy. I’m not going through all this again next August.

Sturgis Journal

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